Category: Musings

The home stretch! It’s been a long and productive month that has flown by. By the time I post this, I should have hit that magical 50,000 words mark. Hooray me! But just because I have ‘won’ NaNo doesn’t mean the book is done. Far from it as there is still a ton of stuff I have yet to write including the beginning for one of the main characters. At least the end is done and most of the middle bits.

As the month has gone on, I have noticed the writing gremlins sneaking up on me telling me that what I’m writing is terrible. They’re also telling me to imagine all the work I’m going to have to do to make it coherent let alone good. As if those bastards know anything, they think it’s their place to second guess certain scenes and the overall story concept. Why are they asking such irritating questions such as: Do you really want to have two main characters that eventually meet and merge into one plotline? Is the location and time period one that anyone will care about? How is the story any different from what’s out there?

Mental fatigue has made it hard to shut them up which has caused me to struggle more and more each day with focus. At times I can see the end of being done with the rough draft by the end of this year but when I look over what I’ve planned that still needs to be done, it feels like that may not be a realistic goal. Yet I need to keep in mind this is just a rough draft. The real work, and for me, fun, begins with the revisions. I knew going into this that there were going to be horrible gaps in logic, that the characters were going to be all over the place (both physically and emotionally), and that there would need to be a lot of detail work to be done.

Overall, my second NaNoWriMo has gone much smoother than my first. For all the reservations and doubts I’ve developed about the story itself the last couple of weeks, I still very much believe in it. Truly this is just the beginning of a very long journey ahead for me.

Each week that goes by this month it gets just a little bit harder to keep up with the pace I’ve set for myself. By the end of this week I’ll have written over 40,000 words but I’ve been so busy writing that I haven’t really cashed in on my rewards. Better get on ordering some DVDs and another T-shirt. Oh, and I still need to take myself out to a nice lunch. On the bright side, I’m getting close to that 50,000 words mark!

Oh, but am I paying for it. The aches and pains in my hands and wrists continue. Mentally I am getting very fatigued. Good thing I wrote ideas down prior to November 1st because it really has saved me a lot of time.

One of the biggest highlights of this week was killing people. I enjoy killing people. On paper, that is. Well, at least when that person is a jerk and it’s during a battle.  I didn’t enjoy it when the father of one of the main characters was discovered dead and I doubt I’m going to enjoy killing off the other main character’s brother.

Another highlight was writing a battle scene. I haven’t written one before so what I have at the moment is poorly written and contains more than a few errors. However, this is just a rough draft and I’m focusing more on getting the initial flow of the scene going. When I am revising I’ll be spending a lot of time reviewing the history and making sure I’ve got it as accurate as I can.

Despite the fatigue, I’m really, really enjoying myself. While I’ve struggled some days to get anything coherent down, I’ve been quite pleased with the overall quality. I’m truly excited to be writing this story once and for all. I’m even looking forward to revising it where I’ll get the opportunity to make it better.

As I’ve been writing, unexpected things turn up in my prose. For example, my male lead apparently found a box floating in the river when he was a kid. He kept it and stores very personal things in there. I hadn’t planned on having anything like that but as he ran off to his secret spot, this box just showed up.

Several days this month I’ve had more than one writing session a day. Compare this to last year when I would write in one 2 to 3 hour block of time and call it good; it was all my brain could handle. This year I’m finding I’ll write for a few hours in the afternoon, take a few hours off to make dinner, make an appearance in my husband’s life, watch some TV, and then go back to write more for another hour or two before calling it a night.

That juicy 50,000 words goal is staring me down this upcoming week. If I can keep up my pace, fueled by an overabundance of coffee, sugar, and caffeine, I should be able to meet it sometime around Friday. As I get closer that magical mark, I’ve been torn between which makes me the most excited: winning NaNoWriMo or the massage I plan to treat myself to. Probably the massage if I’m being truly honest. I don’t think I’ll really be able to relax entirely until the full rough draft is done.

Ahhh, the second full week of 2014 NaNoWriMo is nearly in the books. Happily I’m still plugging along with my thumbnail sketch of an outline. I have figured out, though, that a lot of what I consider to be one scene has to be broken into multiple scenes. This is good because it means that it lessens the stress of wondering what to write. It’s also a bit bad because in the back of my mind I’m wondering if I’ve made this book way too long. I already knew before November started that this book was going to be longer than 50,000 words and would not be completed in 30 days. This is just a rough draft after all, so scenes will be cut, added, and completely revamped during the revision process.

Initially I had hoped to start tackling scenes which required me to review my notes on the history but that hasn’t really happened. That being said, next week I will need to start tackling those scenes since they have a huge impact on the plot of the book and on my characters. At this point I think I’ve done a lot of work setting up the characters’ motivations for the rest of the book now it’s time to work more on the historical angle.

This week has also seen me enter the phase where it is becoming physically harder for me. Yes, writing is physically very draining. Since I write by hand then type up what I’ve written, the callouses on my right hand have become more prominent. My right index finger developed a trigger finger from years of data entry and when I type a lot, it flares up. Lots of icing it, Aleve, and wearing my wrist protectors at night to help with the fatigue my hands are facing have been self-prescribed. My brain is also starting to get more fried and I’m finding myself watching a lot of crap telly to allow my brain to turn to mush. This is when it starts to feel like work but work I’m more than happy to do.

Happily I earned a few more rewards this week. I hit the milestones of 10,000 words, 15,000 words, and the biggie, 25,000 words as of this writing. Hooray! The half-way point! CDs (yes, I still listen to CDs in my car), a Niners T-shirt, and a nice lunch are great motivators to keep going.

Heading into week three I’m aiming to maintain my average daily word count of 1,800 words. I’m also looking forward to writing my more intense, action-oriented scenes including, hopefully, a battle scene. So here’s to everyone still plugging away on his or her story. Keep up the good work!